Ryan Walker (cartoonist)

A prolific artist who published political cartoons in a variety of radical newspapers and magazines in the United States, Walker is best remembered as the creator of the recurring character "Henry Dubb", an American worker who ambled through life blithely being victimized by capitalism ostensibly as a result of his blind acceptance of the ideas of the ruling class.

[2] His father, Edwin Ruthwin Walker, was a farmer who later became a lawyer and moved the family to the Midwestern metropolis of Kansas City, Missouri, where Ryan attended public school.

[4] These were not of sufficiently finished quality to appear in the pages of the magazine, but the ideas were accepted and redrawn into a two-page center spread and back cover cartoon by a house artist, for which Walker received a royalty check of $15.

[5] Walker's private portfolio grew until in 1895 he was finally able to land his first permanent artistic job, a position in the advertising department of the Kansas City Times.

[3] He showed aptitude with a pen and took an acute interest in political issues and he was shortly made an editorial cartoonist for that paper, remaining in that position until 1898.

[8] During his Kansas City years, Walker approached the proprietor of a new socialist weekly, the Appeal to Reason, established there in the summer of 1895 seeking employment as the paper's cartoonist.

[8] While making his living as an artist for the mainstream press, in 1902 Walker began to contribute material to a glossy socialist monthly published in New York City during the first five years of the 20th Century, The Comrade.

[10] Exposed as a dupe and a fool by his worldly wife and somehow cognizant child, the oblivious and intractable protagonist would respond to his latest existential insult with an unblinking stare into space and the catchphrase "I'm Henry Dubb!